r which makes it practically
impossible in civilized countries to legalize punishment by
solitary confinement and the nervous collapse which such
confinement brings about are indications of how deep-seated
is this desire.

The "herd instinct," like all the other of man's original
tendencies, is educable. It can be trained to respond to
groups of various sizes and kinds. In its simplest manifestation
it tends to be aroused by the family, but in the history
of civilization the group tends progressively to enlarge. The
family, the town, the nation--the gregarious instinct may be
educated to respond to these ever-widening groups. The
intensity and controlling power of this instinct over our
actions seems to vary with the degree of intimacy and
intercommunication between the individual and the group. In
primitive society it is most intense among the family and
clan, and the family still remains in civilized society, certainly
in rural districts, a very closely knit primary group. But as
intercommunication widens, a sense of attachment to and
solidarity with a larger group begins to make itself felt. That
intercommunication is largely important in extending the
group in response to which the herd instinct may be aroused,
is well illustrated by the utter lack of national group feeling
exhibited during the Great War by recruits drafted from the
backwoods districts where they had been tied by no railroads
or newspapers to the national civilization of which they were
a part.

The devotion of generous-hearted souls to "lost causes,"
whether political or religious, of the individual to his family
or friends in the face of personal privation, are classic
illustrations of the power of men's gregarious instinct even in the
face of the dictates of reason. In the perhaps extreme but
nevertheless suggestive statement of Mr. Trotter:

He [man] is more sensitive to the voice of the herd than to any
other influence. It can inhibit or stimulate his thought and conduct.
It is the source of his moral codes, of the sanctions of his ethics and
philosophy. It can endow him with energy, courage and endurance,
and can as easily take these away. It can make him acquiesce in his
own punishment, and embrace his executioner, submit to poverty,
bow to tyranny, and sink without complaint under starvation. Not
merely can it make him accept hardship and suffering unresistingly,
but it can make him accept as truth the explanation that his perfectly